Summary
Date Posted: Wednesday, April 19, 2023 , Base Salary: Not Disclosed

JOB DETAILS:
VSO implements high impact development projects through a blended volunteering model, combining the skills and experience of national and international volunteers. Independent research shows that this Volunteering for Development (VfD) approach is effective, inclusive, innovative, locally owned, participatory, inspirational, and drives agency and social action,

In VSO’s Livelihoods practice area, interventions in Employment, Entrepreneurship, and Enterprise (EEE) aim to empower women and youth, while increasing the choice, availability, accessibility, and sustainability of their assets. The interventions target three areas: i) labor market supply – equipping prospective employees and entrepreneurs with market-relevant skills; ii) labor demand – enabling MSME growth and iii) job creation - building an inclusive enabling business environment for women, people living with disabilities and other marginalized groups. As a result, 85% of women and youth in VSO’s EEE portfolio have attained sustainable employment or established new businesses by project completion in past projects. Supported MSMEs have also created decent employment – e.g., in Zanzibar, thirty-six new youth businesses created 1,134 jobs. 2. About future makers’ project With financial support from the Standard Chartered Foundation, the Future Makers project aims to deliver entrepreneurship and employment interventions engaging a total of 1,400 young people across Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia through empowering youth with skills and knowledge to start up their businesses and identify employability opportunities. Through the project, youths will be made aware of their rights and services available to provide ongoing support.

Overall objectives of the project:
• Support, design, and implement workforce and skills development interventions.
• Focus on the role of youth and women entrepreneurs, strengthen them to lead sustainable businesses, create decent jobs and enhance opportunities for businesses to start up and grow.
• Support improvements in policy and regulatory frameworks to address barriers that hinder women and youth’s equitable access to employment and business opportunities.

Overall, the project focuses on economic inclusion for young women and men through:
Employability – ensuring workforce readiness for youth, including those with visual impairment through (vocational and soft) skill development, as well as linkages to employers to access internships, apprenticeships, and transition to decent jobs. We will focus on improving employer policies & practices support the employment of young people (Incl. internships and work experience) as well as ensuring young people are employment ready.

Entrepreneurship - supporting young women and men to engage in entrepreneurship (start-ups and mostly early-stage businesses) to grow, increase incomes and get more market opportunities, in line with Future makers’ goal to increase the number of youth-led SMEs established, their access to business networks and their adoption of improved & inclusive business practices (.

Strengthening the enabling environment - equipping young people to function as leaders and role models in their families and communities by supporting development of recognized youth networks & leaders that can engage government, private sector and employment associations for policy improvements and champion job creation among excluded young people.

In Tanzania, project implementation partners include Small Industry Development Organization (SIDO), and Tanzania Women’s Chamber of Commerce (TWCC). In Zambia, implementation partners include Samfya Association of persons with Disabilities, Samfya Youth Association and Youth in Action for Disability Inclusion in Zambia (YADIZ) and Youth Resource Centers. In Uganda, implementation partners include Uganda small scale Industries Association (USSIA), Women in Technology Uganda (WITU), and Rural Efforts for Action in Development (READ Uganda).

3. Purpose
The main purpose of this research is to build robust evidence and learn on approaches and strategies towards disability inclusion in VSO livelihoods interventions. It is an opportunity to evidence our disability inclusion interventions in livelihoods. It will also enable to understand the value contribution of our blended volunteering approach and look at challenges faced through the process and what has worked and “not worked” to overcome some of the challenges in promoting inclusion. It will also seek to identify and capture innovative solutions and approaches adapted to achieve results.

The Future Makers’ project has a target of reaching out to 5% of persons with disabilities and the proposed learning/evidencing is to capture some of the processes and approach to ensure disability inclusion. The research aims to achieve the following specific objectives:
(i) To identify and document how social inclusion and disability integrated into the Future Makers project in the three countries.
(ii) To identify and document outcome, and impact of the application of VfD pathways particularly to the persons with disability.
(iii) To ascertain implementation challenges and lessons learnt by project teams from integration of VfD pathways in the respective countries.

Findings from the research will be used to enhance evidencing of VSO interventions specifically in achievement of outcomes and realization of results in relation to social inclusion and gender as well as demonstrate impact and success of interventions targeted at persons with disabilities.

4. Guiding questions for the research
The overarching questions to this study are as follows:
(i) How has the Future makers project integrated disability and social inclusion during design and implementation?
(ii) What is the unique contribution of VSO’s VfD approach towards achievement of project outcomes and realization of impact among Persons with Disabilities?
(iii) How has the projects’ approach enabled in evidence building, learning and empowerment of primary actors?
a) What has been the unique contribution of volunteering that may influence project outcomes? Does volunteering influence the way people and partners work together to support primary actors?

5. Methodology:
An external consultant or agency is proposed to conduct this research remotely in the three target countries. The successful consultant has the overall responsibility of oversighting the research including reviewing project documents to inform design of tools and report writing, design and administer data collection tools, train enumerators in the respective countries (virtually) and oversighting fieldwork remotely. A pool of national or community level volunteers from existing VSO Voluntary Workforce (VWF) database, will support data collection in the respective countries. Key Informant interview (KII) and Focused Group Discussions (FGD) are proposed to be used to conduct research. Interviews are expected to be conducted with different stakeholders including project leads and implementing team, primary actors, employers, and volunteers.

6. Timeline and management of the research
The research will be conducted between June and July 2023 and will be managed as one research in the three countries. The interested agencies/individuals should have the expertise:
• Experience of undertaking multi country research and data collection
• Experience in designing approaches and tools for research.
• Experience in orienting and training teams online on tools and methodology required for the research.
• Experience of working virtually and coordinating field level data collection
• Experience of undertaking data collection with beneficiaries and conducting analysis and reporting
• Experience of working on issues of livelihoods in specific youth entreprenurship and enterprise and social inclusion
• Experience of working on issues of disability inclusion in development


Education Requirement: No Requirements

Job Experience: No Requirements

Work Hours: 8

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